The Billionaire’s Prodigal Wife
Chapter 41

It was Saturday morning and Mackenna was standing in the middle of her new kitchen and directing movers on where to put the handful of things they had kept. Nuncio had arranged additional security to keep the movers from talking to the reporters and Padma and Derrick, now officially a couple, were helping her unpack the kitchen items.

She held up a whisk. “I didn’t even know we owned one of these.”

“You didn’t,” Nuncio grumbled as he plucked it from her fingers and put it in a drawer. “I had to go buy one.” As she opened her mouth he grinned, “it’s yours now. I billed it to Alessandro.”

She shook her head at the mention of his name. It had been six days since she’d left his hotel room after giving him an ultimatum. She had not heard anything from him in all the time, but she also noted there had not been one other story from Dulce since the video was release. There had been radio silence from her. He was cutting it close to her deadline and in her heart, she was fearing the worst.

If he had to choose between his protégé, his muse, millions of dollars, and his company, she would lose and she was certain of it. It hadn’t helped when she opened her bank account this morning and noted another deposit had been made to her account and when she called the accountant to question it, he said since it was the beginning of another month, she was entitled to the deposits.

She was trying to stay distracted, trying to avoid any internet news and had removed all social media from her phone. Savannah had promised her every day she would let her know if any other stories broke and every day, she confirmed nothing new. She had at the very least expected to hear his lawyers had denounced the video but even this hadn’t happened. It was still sensational, and Alessandro was being dragged through the mud.

Nuncio had told her Alessandro had flown back to Milan on Sunday night but beyond this she knew nothing more of what the man was up to.

“How come Savannah isn’t here helping?” Padma asked curiously interrupting Mackenna’s thoughts.

“Oh, she was only supposed to be in at six this evening, but they called her in at five thirty this morning. She’s pulling a double. Another illness is hitting the staff again and two doctors are out.”

Derrick grimaced. “The worst thing about trauma is you get exposed to everything.”

“If she brings it home, I’ll strangle her.” Mackenna grimaced. “I told her to shower there before coming home.” She pointed at Nuncio. “You’re picking her up in the morning, right?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “This morning she told she hated my guts and wished I would die so I relish meeting her when I drop you off.” His smile was decidedly twisted.

“Gonna make her eat her words, are you?” Derrick grinned at the man.

“With the upmost pleasure,” he shook his head. “She is by far the most contrary woman I’ve ever met, and I swear she takes perverse pleasure in baiting me.”

“She does,” Mackenna grinned at him, “she told me she likes when you get angry at her, your ears turn red. It makes her laugh. She said you look like a Christmas elf.”

Nuncio glared at her as she and her friends laughed at his expense. “Keep it up Mac and I’ll stop making your morning coffee.”

“I’m sorry Nuncio, I promise to be a better friend,” she batted her eyelashes.

Padma held up the box with the espresso machine in it. “Is this the contraption you make her coffee with because she shared hers with me on Thursday and it was divine. Do I need to buy one of these?”

Nuncio nodded. “Yes, I tried to teach them both how to use it and I may as well have been instructing them on how to speak Cantonese.”

“Can you speak Cantonese?” Derrick asked curiously.

“Yes, and six other languages.” He shrugged. “I was in the Italian army as a translator before I started working with my brother’s security company. There are times when I’m dealing with a pampered princess and her whiney problems I miss being shipped to the middle of nowhere and being shot at.” He made a pointed look in Mackenna’s direction, “present company excluded.”

“Thanks, I think?” Mackenna said as she lifted another box from the floor and pointed a mover to take a box to the bathroom. “I’m pretty sure it’s all shampoos and stuff in there.”

“Uh how much shampoo do you have?” Padma asked curiously, “you told the other guy it was shampoo and sent him with a box to the bathroom already.”

“Really?” Mackenna made a face. “Damn.”

“Where’s your head Mac?” Padma asked curiously.

“Not here,” she grimaced and waved her off. “I really don’t want to talk about it. Keep me distracted please.”

“Still no word?” Nuncio whispered taking the box from her.

“Nope,” she shrugged, “I don’t expect one either.”

“Why not?” Nuncio took the box from her hands and set it on the counter.

“I don’t compare Nuncio,” she felt strangely calm, not having any tears left to shed. “I asked him to choose between me and a supermodel, one who makes him more money in a day than most do in a year. She’s the face of Giordano and asking him to sever their friendship is pointless.”

Her phone rang suddenly, and she noted the international call from Italy. Her heart pounded as she considered it might be Alessandro. She answered the phone and the man on the other end identified himself as the prosecutor in the case against the detective. She put her hand on the phone. “Hey, I’m going to take this on the balcony. Can you manage this?”

“Yeah,” Derrick and Padma said in unison and then both started laughing.

She closed the balcony behind her. “Sorry Signor Marchetti, what can I do for you?”

“I wanted to let you know of a turn of events in the case of your grandparents’ car accident.” His voice was slick and Mackenna closed her eyes against what was coming next.

Her greatest fear was the man would get off because her grandfather was the one who had missed the turn. She waited for him to confirm just this.

“The man accused of running you off the roads has pled guilty this morning. New evidence became known indicating he was instructed by a member of the Giordano family to run you off the road. We presented this evidence to him and his lawyer this morning and he broke down and admitted everything. He was being blackmailed by a member of the family to cause an accident.” He spoke quietly, “Signora, the goal was not to kill you or your grandparents. The goal was to cause an accident significant enough you would lose your child. He has been charged with murder and will face the judge for sentencing. We are currently looking at implementing charges against,” the rest of his words were unheard.

Mackenna leaned over the balcony as vomit violently spewed from her lips. Gasping for air, dizzy and faint she stepped back and fell backwards against the glass doors with force. She slid down and heard the man asking if she was still there and she let the phone fall through her fingers to the balcony floor.

The sound of Romeo scratching the glass behind her caught her ear, but she was helpless to respond. Then her friends were pulling the doors open and sliding her back into the house surrounded her. Derrick and Padma talking to her, someone was taking her pulse, but she heard nothing other than the words of the prosecutor. Someone in the Giordano family had ordered a hit on her baby.

“Mac, stay with us,” Derrick tapped her cheeks lightly. “Come on Mac.”

She clutched her chest tightly, unable to get a breath.

“She’s having a panic attack,” Derrick looked to Nuncio and Padma.

Nuncio grabbed the phone from the balcony and hit redial. He spoke harshly into the phone in Italian and then he grew pale as the man recounted what he’d said to Mackenna. He asked the man for further details and was told as much as he could share at this time. He had only wanted to warn Mackenna because the story had already broken in Italy and was going to likely internationally in hours.

Nuncio grabbed his own phone and called his brother while the doctors tended to Mackenna, his eyes never leaving his charge’s face. She was his responsibility but also his friend and he was pissed off.

Padma was pressing a cool cloth to Mackenna’s forehead and neck, and Derrick was encouraging her to breathe and telling her to focus on the sound of his voice. In her head, all she could hear was Signor Marchetti telling her someone in Alessandro’s family had hired someone to cause her to lose her baby.

She looked unseeingly at Derrick, staring into his blue eyes, and trying to focus on the words he was speaking but she felt as of she was no longer in her own body. The pressure of Padma’s hands stroking her temples and tapping her face were evident, but she felt as if she couldn’t respond.

“Can’t breathe,” she wheezed suddenly, “hurts to breathe.”

“It’s okay,” Derrick held her hands tightly. “You can breathe Mackenna. You’re having a panic attack. You had one before, remember? At the hospital. I need you to focus on my voice. Count with me Mac, Ten,”

“Ten,” she rasped the word, “nine, eight, seven,” she continued focusing on Derrick’s voice and counting backwards with him and when they reached one, she was breathing more evenly but her chest still hurt. Romeo curled on her lap nudging her hand, meowing loudly as if wanting her attention. She stroked his ears absently.

She heard Nuncio speaking Italian instead of English and she watched him, trying to absorb the rapid-fire conversation as his hands flew through the air punctuating every sentence. She made out “you should have told me so I could warn her” before he hung up his phone and threw it with such force against the wall it shattered.

He raced to her and wrapped his arms around her, “Mac, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

She touched his face as if checking to see if he was real. “Who hates me so much they would do this?”

“They’re investigating Mac. All they know is the order came from a senior Giordano. The only one they ruled out was Alessandro.”

“What is going on?” Padma asked as she brushed Mackenna’s hair off her cheeks, scared at how pale her friend was.

“Someone in Alessandro’s family forced the private investigator to cause an accident. The goal,” Nuncio felt the bile rising in his throat, “was to terminate Mac’s pregnancy. They apparently had dirt on the investigator they were going to release to the public. Alessandro’s security team is investigating but it’s not looking good.”

“Oh my god,” Padma put her hand to her mouth in horror.

Derrick sat back on his heels in stunned silence. “Mac, you told me they weren’t the mob.”

“They’re not,” she puffed the words, her breath still short, “in the mob there are rules, a code of conduct. In the House of Giordano, there is only one rule, Giordano first and screw anything else. Alessandro’s grandfather on his mother’s side told me this once and said they were ruthless and to be careful. I never dreamed,” she coughed against the pain in her chest, “someone would do this.”

She gave a bitter laugh, “all this time I thought they liked me. His mother was always so nice to me.” She shivered as she tried to think of which one of them hated her so much.

“Mac don’t go there,” Nuncio urged her. “Let the investigators do their job and sort it out.”

“Am I in danger?” she asked him suddenly.

Nuncio looked away and she felt nausea welling in her stomach.

“Just the baby was,” she wiped her face. “They just wanted to make sure the heir to Giordano was not mine.” She gasped for air. “I’m going to be sick again.”

Derrick swiftly moved an empty box to her lap and Padma held her hair back while she emptied her stomach.

“I need to lay down,” she said quietly.

“Mac, we will oversee the movers and get everything in.” Derrick reassured her. “They already have your bed all set up. Go lay down on it and if you need anything you let us know. We’re not going anywhere.”

Nuncio swung her up in his arms as if she were a ragdoll and she let the tears fall as he lay her down on the bed. He dug through a box, found her pillow, and tucked it under her head and covered her with a throw she always kept around her. He sat beside her on the bed and pushed her hair off her cheek.

“He will get to the bottom of it,” Nuncio said quietly.

“I don’t care,” she rasped, her throat raw from crying and being ill. “I don’t care what the bottom of it is. They killed my grandparents and my baby just to keep me from producing the Giordano heir. I hope they all rot in hell.”

He sat there and held her hand for several minutes until she closed her eyes.

“Nuncio, I just want to be alone now.”

“I’ll be right out there if you need anything. Say my name and I’ll come running. I consider you, my sister. You know this.”

“Yes.”

“Then Mac, if you need anything,” he tilted her chin to look at him, “I mean anything, you just need to say it.”

“What Nuncio? You going to go kill some Giordano’s for me?”

“If you asked I would. I may do it even if you don’t ask.”

“Go,” she gave a humorless laugh. “Make sure Derrick and Padma aren’t too overwhelmed and can you talk to Savannah? I don’t want this hitting her while she’s in trauma and I didn’t warn her.”

When he left, she rolled her face into the pillow and waited for tears to fall but there were none. She felt Romeo jump up on her bed and curl up beside her, occasionally releasing a mew sound until she began stroking his fur. The longer she lay there, the angrier she got, and Nuncio’s offer echoed in her head